"Blogging for Business" Sept. 2004 NorthBay Biz
No longer the exclusive domain of the young, hip and garrulous, Web logs (blogs) are becoming a business tool. Rob Malta is credited with translating his thirst for fast, insider technical chat into www.SlashDot.org, a bulletin board of "news for nerds." It now has so many regular visitors it is supported by advertising. Gawker.com runs commercial blogs like wonkette.com and Nike's short-term promotional Art of Speed site. Entertainment Weekly called Gawker "a must-read for Manhattan's media elite."
Most blogs are written by just one person, and they have many charms: they're fresh, they're free, they're rude, honest and hilarious. Just like the individuals who write them, they're openly biased and often wrong. But if the blog is funny, fast and first with the scoop, the readers keep coming back. When you need a little break at work to clear your mind, refresh with a quick hit of instapundit.com, named the world's most popular blog by Wired magazine.
San Francisco Web designer Doug Bowman runs his corporate site as a blog (www.StopDesign.com). Bowman is one of the leading lights of the Web design world, and his site has become a real resource. He travels frequently, lecturing at different conferences, and he's always learning new things. Best of all, he puts what he learns directly on this blog, so there is always something fresh and interesting on his home page. Bowman collaborated on the redesign of Blogger.com, a site launched in 1999 to make it easy for Web geeks to update their homepages. Acquired by Google in 2003, it offers an easy way to start blogging. Best of all, Google will host it for free.
If you're interested in blogging for business, however, you might want to set up all or part of your existing webpage as a blog, just as Bowman does. Blogs are a great way to add a sense of newness and excitement to your site. Blogging is particularly popular with the young, and the mindset of blogging is similar to the instant messaging mindset. So keep your entries short, sweet and to the point -- and most of all, new.
Anet Dunne, MBA, heads Santa Rosa-based A Net Gain For Revenue, an Internet marketing and customer contact consulting firm, www.aNetGain.com.
